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The investigation, launched following the university’s dismissal of football player Brendan Gibbons in December, also found that head football coach Brady Hoke likely “knowingly lied” about Gibbons, a kicker, when asked why he wasn’t with the team for the team’s bowl game.

Diana Sierra, 24 a PHD in Women's Studies, from right and Taima Attal, 20 a Junior in History at the University of Michigan protest the University's handling of the alleged rape of a woman by former kicker Brendan Gibbons in Ann Arbor, MI on Feb. 25, 2014.
(Photo:
Romain Blanquart/ Detroit Free Press
)

The University of Michigan regularly failed to meet deadlines to investigate claims of sexual assault on campus, a report issued Sunday by the university’s Central Student Government charges.

“(U-M) routinely failed to meet its 60-day deadline to conduct investigations, apparently due to a lack of staffing,” CSG President Michael Proppe said. “While the increase in reporting of sexual misconduct is encouraging, the university should have responded by hiring an additional investigator more quickly.”

The CSG, which shared the report with the Free Press prior to releasing it to the public, launched the investigation following the university’s dismissal of football player Brendan Gibbons in December. The group said head football coach Brady Hoke likely “knowingly lied” about Gibbons, a kicker, when asked why he wasn’t with the team for a bowl game in December.

According to Ann Arbor police reports, a female student accused Gibbons in November 2009 of sexually assaulting her at a fraternity party. The woman told police that she went upstairs with Gibbons and ended up in a bedroom, where she was pushed down on the bed and raped. Police saw bruises on her arm where she said Gibbons held her down.

Gibbons told police in a separate interview that the sex was consensual and volunteered to take a polygraph test. There are no records in the police files showing whether he did.

Police did not pursue criminal charges after the woman stopped returning a detective’s calls.

Gibbons couldn’t be reached for comment. He has not commented on the issue previously, either.

The CSG Task Force said in its report that U-M “failed to explain the four-year delay between Brendan Gibbons’ conduct and the permanent separation. Despite a statement by President (Mary Sue) Coleman that she is ‘very comfortable with the processes and what happened,’ university officials erroneously relied on (federal student privacy laws) to deny requests for information regarding procedures followed in the Gibbons case,” the report says.

“We appreciate that Central Student Government takes the issue of sexual misconduct seriously, as do we,” the statement said. “We hope the CSG’s focus on these issues will lead to greater awareness of the student sexual misconduct policy and even more survivors coming forward.”

The report makes several recommendations, most center around having the university study its sexual conduct policy and the cases that have been judged in the last several years, and issue public reports about the findings.

The student government has no official role in investigating any actual claims of misconduct on the university’s part. However, CSG representatives said that the university’s student code mandates that they be allowed to see reports and other materials regarding investigations in order to see how the system is working and whether they need to recommend changes. Proppe said that has been done in the past.

But in the Gibbons case, the university denied CSG’s efforts to see the records, even though the students hired outside counsel to draft confidentially agreements that they were willing to sign, the report said.

Fitzgerald said it is the university’s position that its sexual misconduct policy is separate from the student code, so the review provision in the student code doesn’t apply to sexual assault cases.

The student government isn’t the only group investigating how the university handled the Gibbons case and other cases of alleged sexual misconduct. The federal Department of Education Office of Civil Rights will be on campus this week to interview students and has demanded that the university turn over thousands of pages of documents.

Gibbons was “permanently separated” from the university in December under school policy, the Michigan Daily reported earlier this year.

Gibbons, a fifth-year player who had been taking graduate school classes, was removed for “violating the university’s Student Sexual Misconduct Policy,” according to a letter the campus newspaper said U-M’s Office of Student Conflict Resolution (OSCR) sent to Gibbons’ Florida home on Dec. 19. The office deals with disciplinary proceedings against students.

After being U-M’s starting kicker for the last four seasons, Gibbons did not play in the Nov. 30 game against Ohio State because of what Hoke later described as a muscle problem. That was 10 days after a separate document, reviewed by the Daily, cited “a preponderance of evidence” against an individual that “engaged in unwanted or unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature.” The Daily identified Gibbons as that individual.

Gibbons, 22, did not travel with the team to the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl in Tempe, Ariz., in December. Hoke told reporters that Gibbons was dealing with a family matter in Florida.

The student government launched its investigation, which was done by a panel of three students, following an outcry from students and others in the community who demanded answers from the university about the four-year delay in taking action against Gibbons.

The student government group interviewed U-M administrators and Ann Arbor police detectives and reviewed documents already released to the public.

“When asked why the university failed to investigate a third-party complaint of sexual misconduct in the Gibbons case, the OSCR director responded, ‘Which one?’ This leads the CSG Task Force to conclude that more than one third party reported Gibbons’ alleged sexual assault to the university.

“In addition, the 2012-13 OSCR Annual Report states that one instance of sexual misconduct filed during the 2012-13 school year was ‘unresolved: investigation in process.’ This designation is the first of its kind in a sexual misconduct case. While the CSG Task Force cannot conclusively state that this designation refers to the Gibbons case, the university should provide more details about the delay. If the August 2012 complaint is indeed related to the Gibbons case, the University investigation lasted over 445 days — much longer than the recommended 60-day deadline.”

The task force also looked at the athletic department’s handling of the situation. Hoke has said federal student privacy laws bar him from talking about what he knew and when he knew it.

But the student government group said the athletic department knew what was going on throughout the entire process.

“The athletic department routinely notifies coaches when student athletes are accused of serious misconduct,” the report says. “Coaches routinely consult with their sports administrator before finding a student athlete committed a serious violation of team rules. The football program does not have written rules, and Dave Brandon is the sports administrator responsible for the football program.

“Assuming the athletic department followed, as representatives of the department stated it did, student discipline communication practices in the Gibbons case, Brady Hoke and Dave Brandon would have known about the allegations of sexual misconduct when Brady Hoke stated that Gibbons could not play in the Dec. 28, 2013, Buffalo Wild Wings game due to a ‘family matter.’ ”

The student government task force members are concerned about the university’s approach to sexual assault investigations.

“The task force is worried that the university’s (perceived or actual) inaction or delay may deter survivors from filing complaints of sexual misconduct with the university,” said Jeremy Keeney, the student general counsel for the student government and a member of the task force. “According to (the university), there are less complaints of sexual misconduct this year than at this point last year. As a result, it’s important for (the student government) to work with the administration to clarify issues in the sexual misconduct policy to help reduce negative ramifications.”